Proxy fight no more
This is all pretty technical stuff, so we spoke to Eric Schorn, VP of marketing in ARM's processor division to get to the essence of it.
As we've come to expect from ARM, Schorn didn't waste any time in having a pop at Intel, specifically the lack of choice he thinks OEMs have in the netbook market. "There's not much differentiation among netbooks; we're going to bring the phone model to some other spaces."
"An SoC is a very complex chip, but the processor inside of it is the tough bit," said Schorn. "To date you've needed a processor design team and a big budget [to make one])."
The mobile handset market is where ARM has traditionally resided, happy to be out of the spotlight as it collected incremental license revenue as its IP is used in pretty much every handset made. But since ARM started making more powerful processor designs and Intel set its sights on the smartphone market, the two companies are increasingly in direct conflict with each other.
However, until now this conflict was being fought by ARM's ecosystem proxies. With this announcement ARM is not only seeking to challenge Intel's pre-eminence as a CPU maker, its challenging Intel in its own back yard: PCs and servers.
While the trend towards low cost, low power computing has been clear in the consumer space since the first Eee PC was launched, the cost of powering and cooling servers has pushed energy efficiency to the top of the agenda on the business sector too. So ARM reckons it has an advantage in this market if it can demonstrate superior performance per watt.
